IDS2935: What is the Good Life [Fall 2010]
M, W period 8 (3:00-3:50), plus 1 discussion section/week
Turlington, room 007
Professors: Christopher Silver (College of Design, Construction and Planning),
Brenda Smith (School of Music), Victoria L. Rovine (School of Art and Art History)
Contact: Dr. Rovine—[email protected] Dr. Smith—[email protected]
Dr. Silver—[email protected]
Teaching Assistants: Samantha Barnsfather [email protected];
Laurel Harbin [email protected]; Aaron Keebaugh [email protected];
Linda Portal [email protected]; David Whitehead [email protected]
Office hours: to be announced in sections
Course web site: http://www.aa.ufl.edu/humanities/goodlife/index.html
Introduction
Through a close examination of relevant works of art, music, literature, history, religion, and
philosophy, students will consider the basic question, “What is the Good Life?” The course will
serve as an invitation to the Humanities and to a lifetime of reflection on the human condition
through the unique opportunities available to the students at the University of Florida.
The Humanities, a cluster of disciplines that inquire into the very nature and experience of being
human, provide many approaches to the question „What is a good life,‟ as well as a multiform
treasury of responses that comprises the cultural and intellectual legacy of world humanity.
The question is especially relevant for a detailed examination as you become more and more
involved in making the decisions that will shape your future and the future of others. In order to
make reasonable, ethical, well-informed life choices, it is useful to reflect upon how one might
aspire to live both as an individual, and a member of local and global communities.
The course is interdisciplinary and draws on the considerable humanities resources at UF. It is
also cross-cultural and draws on the full range of human experience across the world and through
time in trying to answer the question: “What is the good life?” It contains elements such as the
gateway readings, museum exhibits, and performances that are common to the several sections
being taught this semester. The lectures, discussion sections, and other readings are specific to
your section of this course.
Common Activities
This course includes special exhibits at the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, a musical
performance, and a lecture by a distinguished scholar. We will discuss how these events fit into
the larger themes of the course throughout the semester. More information on them can be found
at the What is the Good Life Course Website
http://www.aa.ufl.edu/humanities/goodlife/index.html
Assignments
One exam (finals week December 13, 3:00-5:00)
1 long essay, 1000 words each (due in sections week 13)
2 short essays, 500 words each (due in sections weeks 4, 12)
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Other Policies, Rules, and Resources
1. Handing in Assignments: Assignments due in class should be handed directly to your TA.
Please also keep a dated electronic copy of all your papers.
2. Late or Make-Up Assignments: You may receive an extension on an assignment only in
extraordinary circumstances and with prior approval from the instructor. If an extension is not
granted, the assignment will be marked down ½ grade (e.g., from B+ to B) for each day late.
3. Attendance and Participation: Class attendance is required. Do not register for this class if
you cannot arrive on time. Students should arrive on time and prepared to discuss the day‟s
readings. Tardiness harms your understanding of the material and disrupts the class. After the
first late arrival, the instructor reserves the right to mark you absent for the day. The instructors
will not excuse absences, provide notes, or discuss material that has already been covered,
barring extraordinary circumstances.
5. Common Courtesy: Cell phones and other electronic devices must be turned off during class.
Students who receive or make calls or text messages during class will be asked to leave and
marked absent for the day.
Grade Information
Grade Proportion
Grade Scale
Grade Value
1 long Essay: 25%
2 Brief Essays: 15% each = 30%
Final Exam: 25%
Participation Grade: 20%
100-93=A
92-90=A89-86=B+
85-82=B
81-79=B78-75=C+
75-72=C
71-69=C68-66=D+
65-62=D
61-60=D59-0=E
A=4.0
A-=3.67
B+=3.33
B=3.00
B-=2.67
C+=2.33
C=2.00
C-=1.67
D+=1.33
D=1.00
D-=0.67
E=0.00
General Education Requirement
This course meets three (3) hours of the University of Florida‟s General Education Requirement
in the Humanities (H) area by providing instruction in the key themes, principles and
terminology of several humanities disciplines. By focusing on the history, theory and
methodologies used within these disciplines, you will be able to identify and to analyze some of
the key elements, biases and influences that shape human thought. By introducing students to the
rich legacy of the humanities, this course will emphasize clear and effective analysis and
approach to issues and problems from multiple perspectives.
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This course has several Student Learning Outcomes. By the conclusion of this course, students
will be able to:
● Know the history, underlying theory and methodologies used across several humanities
disciplines.
● Identify and analyze key elements, biases, and influences that shape thought within
those disciplines.
● Approach issues and problems from multiple disciplinary perspectives.
● Communicate knowledge, thoughts, and reasoning clearly and effectively in forms
appropriate to the disciplines, individually and/or in groups.
Gordon Rule Requirement
This course is categorized as an E2 Gordon Rule Course, which means that students will have a
minimum of 2,000 written words evaluated on the effectiveness, organization, clarity and
coherence of the writing, as well as the grammar, punctuation and usage of standard written
English.
The assignments due in sections on weeks 4, 12, and 14 will satisfy this Gordon Rule
requirement, which means that students will be provided feedback on that written work before
the last class meeting of the semester. These assignments will be assessed using a standard
rubric that shall evaluate content, organization and coherence, argument and supporting
evidence, and the style of writing.
Please keep in mind that in order to secure E2 Gordon Rule credit for this course, students will
need to earn a C grade or better and satisfy the writing requirements of this course. It is possible
not to meet the writing requirement and still pass the class. Students should review their degree
audits after receiving their grades to verify receipt of credit for the writing component.
Academic Honesty
All students must conform to UF‟s honesty policy regarding cheating, plagiarism, and the use of
copyrighted materials, which you can find at http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/academic.php.
Students found guilty of academic misconduct will be prosecuted to the full extent of the UF
honesty policy.
Students with Disabilities
Please do not hesitate to contact the instructor during the semester if you have any individual
concerns or issues that need to be discussed. Students requesting classroom accommodation must
first register with the Dean of Students Office (http://www.dso.ufl.edu/drp/). The Dean of
Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this
documentation to the instructor when requesting accommodation.
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Schedule of Courses and Readings (*gateway readings marked with asterisk)
Unless otherwise noted, all readings available on ARES Online Reserve. (Access the system
at www.uflib.ufl.edu click on “Course Reserves.” Sign up for an account.)
[The lead professor for each week’s lectures is noted in brackets.]
Week One (August 23 and August 25) Introducing What Is The Good Life
Week Two (August 30 and September 1 lectures): Thinking About the Good Life
[Prof. Smith]
*1. Wendell Berry, “The Way of Ignorance,” from, The Way of Ignorance (Berkeley, CA:
Shoemaker and Hoard, 2005), 53-67.
*2. Vivien Sung Five fold Happiness: Chinese concepts of luck, prosperity, longevity, happiness,
and wealth. (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2002); 11- 12; 18- 19; 34, 49, 70-71; 94-95 and
97; 152, 156-157; 204-205; 207; 210-211, 214.
*3. Dominik Wujastyk, ed. and trans. The Roots of Ayurveda (New York: Penguin, 2003), 61-70.
4. Leo Tolstoy, “After the Ball,” from The Death of Ivan Ilyich and other stories, trans. by
Wilks, et. al, (New York, NY: Penquin Classics, 2008); 219-233.
5. Marcel Proust, “Another Memory” from The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust, trans.
by J. Neugroschel, (New York, NY: Cooper Square Press, 2001); 186-188.
6. Edna St. Vincent Millay, “On Hearing A Symphony of Beethoven” from The Buck in the
Snow in Collected Poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay, (New York, NY: Harper& Row, 1956); 629.
7. Virginia Woolf, “How should One Read a Book?” from The Second Common Reader(New
York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1960); 234-245.
Enhancement Material: Kerry Oliver Smith (Curator of Contemporary Art, Harn Museum
“Contemporary Latin American Art: Notions of Paradise and the Ideal World”
Week Three (September 8 lecture): Seeking a Good Life [Prof. Smith]
*1. Herman Hesse, Siddhartha (1922) . Available for free as an e-Gutenberg text at the
following address: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2500/2500-8.txt
2. Peter J. Gomes, “Living for Goodness‟ Sake”, Chap. 3 from The Good Life (San Francisco,
CA: Harper, 2003);49-69.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rlsZfce8jU The National Geographic: Inside Mecca Part I
(Pilgrimage)
Enhancement material: Video re: Paul Basler‟s Missa Kenya, a work composed for the
University Choir, School of Music, University of Florida, 1995.
Week Four (September 13, September 15 lectures): Celebrating a Good Life
[Prof. Rovine]
**Short Essay #1 due in sections
1. Emily Grosholz, “On Necklaces,” The Prairie Schooner, 81 #2 (Summer 2007): 182-195.
2. Manthia Diawara, “The Song of the Griot,” Transition, #74 (1997): 16-30.
3. Stephen Wooten, “Antelope Headdresses and Champion Farmers,” African Arts 33 #2 (2000):
18-33.
Enhancement Material: Kole Odutola, Dept. of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, “Life is
like a Dance”
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Week Five (September 20 & September 22 lectures): Constructing the Good Life
[Prof. Silver]
*1. Kathleen Cox, “The Power of Space,” from The Power of Vastu Living (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 2002), 3-26.
*2. Allison Arieff, “Opinionator: A Breath of Fresh Air for Health Care,” from the New York
Times, 13 December 2009. Available online at the following address:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/a-breath-of-fresh-air-for-health-care/
3. Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of To-Morrow (1898, reprint MIT Press,1965), pp. 50-57
4. Lewis Mumford, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations and Its Prospects (New
York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), pp. 543-560.
Enchancement Materials: Meg Portillo, Interior Design Dept., “Gift of the Senses: Living the
Good Life in Living Color, A Design Perspective”
Vandana Baweja, School of Architecture, “Mughal Gardens”
Week Six (September 27 & September 29 lectures): Embodying a Good Life [Prof. Silver]
*1. Sandra Steingraber, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment
(New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 14-30.
*2. Interview and excerpt from Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (New
York: Crown, 2010). Available online at the National Public Radio website at the following
address: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123232331
3. Frederick Law Olmsted, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England (original 1852,
Library of American Landscape History, 2002), pp. 86-96.
Week Seven (October 4 & October 6 lectures): Owning the Good Life [Prof. Rovine]
*1. Michael Kimmelman, “Who Draws the Borders of Culture? Greece's claim for the Elgin
marbles is as much about nationalism as about art,” from the New York Times, 4 May 2010.
Available online: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/arts/09abroad.html
2. Alexandra Jacobs, “Happy Feet,” The New Yorker (Sept. 14, 2009)
3. Monica Udvardy, Linda Giles, John Mitsanze, “The Transatlantic Trade in African
Ancestors,” American Anthropologist vol 105 #3 (2003): 566-580.
Week Eight (October 11 & October 13 lectures): Sustaining the Good Life [Prof. Rovine]
*1. Aldo Leopold, “The Land Ethic,” from A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and
There (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948), 201-226.
2. Geraldine Brooks, “The Painted Desert,” The New Yorker 79 #20 (7/28/03): 60-67.
3. Wangari Maathai, “A People Without Culture Feel Insecure,” New African #438 (March
2005): 36-38.
Enhancement Material: Peggy Carr, Dept. of Landscape Architecture, “Green Infrastructure to
Support Humanity”
Week Nine (October 18 & October 20 lectures): Governing the Good Life [Prof. Silver]
October 18: Guest presentation by Latif Bolat, Turkish musician
*1. Thucydides, “The Melian Dialogues,” from Richard Crawley, trans., The History of the
Peloponnesian War (London: Everyman Press, 1993), 288-295.
2. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), p. 146-159.
Oct 18 **Special event: Latif Bolat, Turkish music, 7:30 pm, University Auditorium**
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Week Ten (October 25 & October 27 lectures): Fighting for a Good Life [Prof. Silver]
*1. Martin Luther King, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” (1963). Available online at the
University of Pennsylvania‟s African Studies Center at the following address:
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
*2. Pablo Neruda‟s 1971 Nobel Lecture, “Towards the Splendid City.” Available online at the
following address:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1971/neruda-lecture-e.html
3. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Tales from Djakarta: Caricatures of Circumstances and Their
Human Beings (original 1963, reprinted 2000), p. 3-22.
Week Eleven (November 1 & November 3 lectures): Sharing a Good Life [Prof. Rovine]
*1. Caroline Knapp, “The Color of Joy,” from Pack of Two: the Intricate Bond Between People
and Dogs (New York: Random House, 1999), 3-16.
*2. Martin Buber, “The Way of Man According to the Teachings of Hasidism,” from Maurice
Friedman, trans., Hasidism and the Modern Man (New York: Horizon, 1958). Reprinted in
Charles Guignon, ed. The Good Life (Indianapolis: Hackett Publications, 1999), 288-293.
*3. Love poems from Indian literature, c. 5th century CE (1 page; includes poems from Merwin,
W. S., and J. Moussaieff Masson, Sanskrit Love Poetry (New York: Columbia University Press,
1977), pp. 95 and 171; and Greg Bailey and Richard Gombrich, Love Lyrics by Amaru,
Bhartrhari and Bilhana (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 97, 131.
4. Ariel Levy, “The Lesbian Bride‟s Handbook,” New York 40 #15 (April 30, 2007): 50-54.
**Special event: Lecture by Dr Nalini Nadkarni, November 3 at 8 p.m. in the Reitz Ballroom **
Week Twelve (November 8 & November 10 lectures): Questioning the Good Life [Prof.
Smith]
**Short Essay #2 due in sections
*1. Henry Thoreau, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived for,” “The Pond in Winter,” and
“Conclusion,” from Walden. Available online at the following addresses:
http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden02.html http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden16.html
http://thoreau.eserver.org/walden18.html
*2. Selection of verses from Sanskrit literature Greg Bailey and Richard Gombrich, Love Lyrics
by Amaru, Bhartrhari and Bilhana (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 149.
3. Charles Ives, “Thoreau” from Essays before a Sonata, (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1969);
51-69.
4. Edward Hoagland, “About H.D. Thoreau” from Balancing Acts: Essays by Edward
Hoagland, (New York, NY: Simon&Schuster,1992); 157-166.
5. Jacques Barzun “Toward a Fateful Serenity,” (1990) from A Jacques Barzun Reader, ed. M.
Murray, (New York, HarperCollins, 2002); 3-11.
6. Wiliam Deresiewicz, “Solitude and Leadership” from The American Scholar, Spring 2010,
Vol. 79. No. 2; 20-31.
Week Thirteen (November 15 & November 17 lectures): Creating a Good Life
[Prof. Smith]
**Long Essay due in sections
1. Aaron Copland “Music and the Human Spirit (1954) from Aaron Copland: A Reader, Selected
readings 1923-1972, ed. by R. Kostelatz (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004); 26-32.
2. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 128 in The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Helen Vendler,
(Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); 543-548.
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3. Jeanette Winterson, “Art Objects” from Art Objects, (New York, Knopf, 1997) ; 3-24.
4. Carlos Fuentes, “How I Started to Write,” in The Art of the Personal Essay, ed. P. Lopate,
((New York, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1994); 432-453.
5. Muriel Barbery, “Journal of the Movement of the World No. 4” from The Elegance of the
Hedgehog, trans. By A. Anderson, (New York, Europa editions, 2006); 184-185.
Week Fourteen (November 22 & 24 lectures) [Prof. Silver]
1. David C. Sloane, The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Univ Press, 1991), "Mount Auburn and the Rural Cemetery Movement," :44-64
2. Life and Death in Tana Toraja in
www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/travel/narrative_travel_writing/life_and_death_in_tana_toraj
a_indonesia.shtml
Week Fifteen (November 29 & December 1 lectures): Ending the Good Life [Prof. Rovine
& Prof. Smith]
*1. Thomas Nagel, “Death,” from John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Death (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 61-70.
*2. Chapter Two of Barbara Stoler Miller, trans. The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna's Counsel in Time
of War (New York: Bantam Classics, 1986), 31-41.
3. Emily Dickinson, Poems #516, 712, 715,1695, in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson,
ed. T. Johnson, (Boston,MA: Little, Brown, 1960) 252, 350, 351, 691.
4. E.B. White, “Once More to the Lake” in Essays of E.B.White, (New York, NY: Harper,
1977); 246-253.
5. Philip Roth, “Femme Fatale” in Anne Frank: Reflections on her Life and Legacy, ed. Enzer
and Solotaroff-Enzer, (Urban, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000); 229-243.
6. Kwame Anthony Appiah preface and epilogue In My Father‟s House (Oxford University
Press, 1992).
Enhancement Materials: Victoria L. Rovine, School of Art and Art History, “Art, Life, Death in
the Ashanti Kingdom (Ghana)”
Week Sixteen (December 6 & 8 lectures) Teaching the Good Life
1. Christopher Silver, "Urban Village to World City: Re-planning Jakarta in the 1990s." in
Planning the Megacity: Jakarta in the Twentieth Century (Abingdon, Okfordshire, UK:
Routledge, 2008), pp. 186-211.
2. Brenda Smith, "The Nature of the Amateur Singer" in Choral Pedagogy, 2nd ed. by Brenda
Smith and Robert T. Sataloff, (San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing, Inc., 2006) 4-6.
3. Victoria L. Rovine, “Working the Edge: XULY.Bët‟s Recycled Clothing,” in Old Clothes,
New Looks: Second-hand Fashion. Edited by Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark. (Oxford:
Berg, 2004): 215-228.
Final exam: December 13th 3:00-5:00